


Soot and Slime

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Lindsay/Michael platonic, M/M, Polyamory, Ray/Tina platonic, Ryan the Slime Guy, Slice of Life, baby dragon!Michael, exorcist!Ray
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:56:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5880271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's exorcist code of ethics don't allow him to kill demons and creatures who don't harm humans. Which is exactly how he winds up stuck with a dragon youngling and a slime man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soot and Slime

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a desire to write bby dragon Michael, with a cute tongue that goes "blililil" at Ray as he's trying to use his fireplace. And then I added Ryan. And then I added smut. So here we are.

Ray’s hand stings while grinding chunks of salt, and his breath fogs in front of his face. The pestle grasped in his fist clinks brightly against the mortar when he finally takes a break to work feeling back into his fingers. Disgruntled from the stiff chill in the room, Ray scoots away from his desk and stands to shuffle towards the thermostat. The heat is set at a comfortable 74 degrees, but Ray squints through his glasses when the current temperature of the room reads out at a solid 65. Ray taps the screen for a second, hoping maybe that will do something. But nothing happens, and he stands dumbly in the hallway, shivering.

 

“Fuck my life, man,” Ray grumbles and fishes out his phone. “Don’t do this to me, I don’t know how to fix shit.”

 

A quick Google search gives him some ideas about his dilemma. He has no idea what a “pilot light” is, or where to find it, but anything is worth a shot at this point. Using the flash on his phone as a light, Ray ventures into his basement to find the furnace. He trapezes over boxes and piles of unknown junk before making it to the back corner where someone shoehorned in the furnace. Ray’s knees ache as he kneels in front of a panel, and he has to work his fingernails between the panel and the metal body of the furnace to remove said panel. Without ripping a nail off, he managed to pry open the door to reveal pipes and other hardware inside.

 

Juggling his phone, Ray clicks on a few links to figure out what to do now. He watches a few YouTube videos, all hosted by men with southern tangs in their voices. Ray chews his bottom lip and turns his makeshift flashlight back inside the furnace. It’s easy to find the switch the videos had mentioned, with positions marked OFF, PILOT, and ON. But once he finds that, uncertainty squirms in the poor man’s stomach. He isn’t sure where the pilot flame actually _is_. And once Ray thinks about it, he doesn’t have a fucking lighter to light the damn thing anyway!

 

“Fuck it,” Ray yells and slaps the panel back into place. “There’s chopped wood upstairs, I’ll just use the fire place. I’d rather burn to death than blow up the house, because this shit is confusing.”

 

His feet pound back up the stairs a little harder than necessary, but it’s a great way to work out his frustration. Plus, the extra force in each step helps defrost his blood and chases the ache out of his fingers and toes. There’s a thin layer of dust on the logs at the top of the pile, but that probably won’t matter. Probably. Shrugging, Ray lifts a few logs and rests them on the raised hearth. It’s an effort to pull the wood up to the hip-level hearth, but this just helps Ray warm up, too. Ray stretches on his tip toes to find the matches he knows are somewhere on the mantle. Dust sticks to his fingers as he slides them along the mantle, but he finds the matches eventually.

 

“Wonder if matches expire…”

 

Expired matches sounds like something that would happen to him. Thankfully, there’s at least one lighter in his desk, so Ray doesn’t worry about it. Ray tosses the matches on the hearth and reaches for a log. For a moment, Ray thinks he accidentally threw the matches on the floor, though, when a brief flash of light sparks in his peripheral vision. Pausing, Ray sees the matches still sitting on the hearth. He rolls his eyes, then, and reaches for the logs once again. But as Ray’s eyes turn away from the grate inside the fireplace, the blip of light shines again. Ray’s frustration mounts, and the young man leans over with the stone of the hearth digging into his stomach to see what is flashing amongst the ashes and burnt wood.

 

In the dim light that reaches this part of the fireplace, it’s easy for Ray to see the red ember hiding in the ash. The longer he stares, though, the more he realizes it’s not an ember at all. The baseball-sized glow is not as smooth as he’d thought. Scales and singed hair sharpen at this close distance. Confused, Ray slows his breathing to stop rustling the ashes so that he can see. The not-ember remains still, and then brightens a fraction. The glow warms Ray’s face, and he enjoys it until two eyes open to stare at him. Blinking hard, Ray wishes the eyes away, not wanting to deal with what he thinks this is. But a forked tongue flicks out of a mouth beneath those almond eyes, and Ray groans while leaning out of the pit.

 

“Fire demon in the fireplace, fucking great!”

 

Ray groans to the high ceiling of the living room and stomps away from the demon. He rips open his desk to search for some salt and a vial of water. All the while, Ray purses his lips and sighs every time an opened drawer reveals nothing. He eventually finds a small sack full of salt he’d already treated for demon slaying. A tiny squeak from the fireplace spooks him, and Ray whips around with the salt in hand. The fire demon crawls out of the ash pile it had hidden in and scuttles for one of the logs. Ray leaps towards the fireplace and flicks a few salt crystals at the demon. They simply bounce off it, though, and the demon sniffs at the wood.

 

“Hey stop, you little uh… thing, don’t eat that,” Ray yells with a hand outstretched.

 

The demon spares him a bored look before climbing on top of a log. The creature’s red glow has dimmed outside the fireplace, but now in contact with a fuel source, it brightens and grows bigger. The instinct to kill the demon swirls in Ray’s stomach, but he hesitates. The salt he’d thrown a moment ago should have at least burned the little creature, but nothing had happened. So Ray waits until the demon has used up half the log before moving closer. When he does, the creature looks at him with golden eyes and tiny wings sprouting from its back. When its tongue flicks out again at him, Ray sags and dumps his handful of salt back in the bag.

 

“Correction, ladies and gentlemen. Baby _dragon_ in the fireplace. Great.”

 

Groaning even louder to the ceiling, Ray abandons the salt bag on his desk and drags his feet down the hall to his bedroom. Inside, a bookcase full of tomes on demon slaying and codices of monsters lines one wall. Light floods the room from the lamp hanging above, and Ray shuffles down the row to find a book on dragons. His finger drags across the spine of many books before he finds one that he thinks is right. With it open in hand, Ray speed-reads in his bedroom, searching for how to either kill the little thing or get rid of it. Warmth spreads along Ray’s shoulder as he reads, and like before with the cold creeping into the room, it takes Ray an embarrassing amount of time to notice the difference.

 

Ray cranes his neck to eye the little dragon draped along his shoulder. It’s bigger than when he’d left the living room, probably thanks to a whole log in its fiery belly. It has enough strength to form a human-like face, nose, ears, mouth and all. Its tongue sneaks out again, tickling Ray’s cheek, before the baby dragon shuffles on Ray’s shoulders. It tucks its head around Ray’s neck and tries to curl between him and his hoodie, making a nest out of the hood itself. The dragon’s whip-like tail circles around Ray’s neck, just under his Adam’s apple. Ray remains still and calm as it burrows around him. The dragon vibrates around his neck—snoring or purring, Ray can’t decide—and nuzzles the side of Ray’s throat.

 

Whining, Ray swallows hard and slots the book back into its space. Ray realizes his defeat and returns to the living room to get back to lighting a fire. Of the four logs he had hauled up to the hearth, one is just ashes. However, the other three have been dragged onto the grate inside the fireplace and burn happily in the pit. The rumbling around Ray’s neck chimes in, and Ray glances at his shoulder where he can see the slight edge of the creature. The fire is lit, though, and it’s one less thing Ray has to worry about. Now, however, his main concern is focused on said little dragon.

 

With cellphone quickly in hand, Ray paces his living room while waiting for his monster expert to answer her phone. When Tina finally does say hello, she sounds far away and tired.

 

“Are you in imminent peril?” she asks.

 

Ray stops his pacing, puzzled, and says, “No? Why?”

 

“Because that’s the only conceivable reason why you would call me at 3 AM when I have to get up in two hours for work.”

 

“My bad,” Ray murmurs and picks up his pacing again. “I wasn’t paying attention to what time it is. But I mean, my reason for calling you is sort of in the league of imminent peril. I found a baby dragon in my fireplace.”

 

Static fuzzes the line for a moment, and something falls to the floor on Tina’s end. Ray’s pacing pauses again, and he waits for Tina to say something. Breathless, she finally comes back on the line.

 

“I’ll be over in five, don’t go anywhere.”

 

“With what car or license would I go anywhere?”

 

“Shut up,” she pants with a laugh before hanging up on him.

 

Humming, Ray locks his phone and falls into his desk chair. Around his neck, the dragon sleeps peacefully, only twitching every so often. It makes barely audible chirping noises, but Ray feels the puffs of air on his skin with every squeak. Ray sits still and stares at the wall, rather than continue grinding rock salt. The heat from the dragon puts him on the edge of sweating even in the chill of the room. If he were to pick up the pestle again, he’d definitely work up a sweat. The last thing he wants to do is irritate the powerful creature currently sleeping near his jugular.

 

Said dragon does stir at that moment, though. The sweet, almost cute chirping turns sharp. Ray sucks in a breath, and his shoulders tense up. The dragon rouses from sleep enough to hiss angrily, but the killing intent isn’t angled at him. Out the corner of his eye, Ray watches the little dragon spit tiny flames and hiss at the front door. Nervous about catching on fire, Ray lifts a shaky hand up to the twitching tail by his throat. Ray slides the tips of his fingers over the dragon’s skin, and the hissing stops immediately. Another noise, like the grumbling Ray had done earlier, slips out of the dragon’s mouth as it curls tighter around Ray and settles back down. A moment later, the lock clicks open and Tina steps into the house.

 

“Where is it?” she asks, just as breathless as she’d been over the phone. Her eyes are bright, as if Ray hadn’t called her in the middle of the night. And her hair has a bounce about it, filled with energy and eagerness. Ray envies her.

 

Ray points with his free hand to his neck, where the dragon stews silently. Its tail twitches again under Ray’s calming hand, but it remains still. Tina crosses the living room without a thought to the danger. Ray pitifully wishes she would show more caution, since the dragon tenses and wiggles the closer she gets. When Tina stops in front of Ray’s chair, he leans away from her if only to put some distance between her and the dragon. She is a monster expert, though, and shows no fear in putting her face nearer to the squirming creature.

 

“Aww, he likes you,” she says while inspecting the dragon. “What did you do to get him like this? Dragons usually don’t like humans.”

 

Ray gives the barest of shrugs. “I mean, I found it in the fireplace while trying to start a fire. He used some of the wood. My, uh, furnace is out… And wait, ‘him’? How do you know?”

 

Tina cocks her head while looking the dragon over. “He’s small, even for a youngling. Plus, females have different colorations. He’s male. I mean, I can show you more proof, if you want.”

 

“Nah,” Ray sighs while tightening a hand over the dragon’s tail. “I don’t want my house burned down. Or either of our asses killed.”

 

“He wouldn’t burn the house down, or hurt you,” Tina protests while straightening. “He didn’t hatch here, he picked this house. He’s probably been here for a long time. The house was vacant before you bought it, right? And you’ve never used the fireplace before.”

 

Ray nods.

 

“So, he’s been stuck in this infant state for… I’d say years. Which isn’t unnatural, but I guess he got into your lighter fluid or fire wood. He likes you, because you fed him.”

 

“Yea,” Ray gestures with a jerk of his head to the lit fire. “I had some wood up there to get a fire going, and he was there. I looked away for a second, and he’d already eaten like half a log. And then he followed me when I was looking for a book to kill him, and by then he’d eaten the rest of the log. But, I mean, he did make the fire…”

 

Tina gives him a stricken, tight look. “You never kill a dragon, Ray. **Never**.”

 

Ray throws his free hand in the air. His frustration must leech into the dragon, because he gives out a tiny hiss at Tina. But Ray reaches for the little guy’s face, and the dragon takes that opportunity to nuzzle and lick him. A deep, comical frown turns Ray’s lips down, and Tina laughs behind her hand. Blushing under the indignation, Ray resists the urge to fling his head back. He didn’t catch a good look at the dragon’s body to see if he has any spikes, and he’s not eager to find out the hard way.

 

“Just tell me how to kill him,” Ray groans.

 

Tina’s mood shifts immediately. Her laugh evaporates, and she gives him another scornful stare.

 

“Killing a dragon is not an easy feat, even if I wanted to help you do that. You can’t kill him, Ray. He’s not hurting anything, anyway. Doesn’t that go against your code?”

 

“Fine!” Ray tears his hand away from the dragon and slaps it on his desk. He ignores the mournful chirp from the creature around his neck. He hates it when Tina uses his code of ethics against him. “Then how do I get rid of him? I can’t have a dragon in my house.”

 

“I mean, giving him away wouldn’t be difficult at all.” Tina pauses to grab a folding chair from Ray’s makeshift kitchen table and sits near the edge of his desk. “Dragons are rare and valuable. The thing that’ll make it hard is him.” She points to Ray’s neck. “He likes you.”

 

“Well, I feel indifferent.”

 

Tina rolls her eyes and leans her elbow on the desk to support her chin. “Yea, I doubt that. He cuddled right up to you. And he doesn’t like me very much, which should tell you something right there.”

 

“Just because you’re Dr. Dolittle doesn’t mean all animals have to like you.”

 

Tina snorts. “I mean he’s jealous. Dragons are notoriously jealous, and they’re frequently possessive of one person or creature. And he’s clearly picked you.”

 

A warm nose bumps Ray’s jaw, and his hand reaches for the dragon without any thought. The dragon’s tongue peeks out again to flick against his fingers, but it disappears just as quickly as it’d come out. Gurgling, squeaky noises accompany the dragon’s nuzzling of his hand, and Ray struggles to hide a tiny smile. Over the tops of his glasses, though, he catches Tina biting his lip, also trying not to smile. The dragon settles down for another snooze, and Ray finally drops his hand. He sighs, defeated, and lifts his head to look at Tina.

 

“Fine, he can stay. For now. But tell me what I need to know about dragons. What do I feed him? Can I housetrain him? Does he poop and piss fire?”

 

Tina forces him to open a notebook to take notes as she dictates to him. She lists for him supplies he should buy and ways he can “baby dragon” proof his house. Whenever he refers to the dragon as a baby, Tina correct him under her breath. When he doesn’t give it up, she warns him that the dragon is already years old, and he’ll be able to change shape once he gathers enough strength. Ray tucks that knowledge away with a quiet whine, images of a fire-breathing dragon stomping his house Godzilla style haunting him.

 

At some point, they stop to take a break and search Ray’s kitchen for something edible. When Tina comments on the cold, Ray recounts for her the situation with his pilot light. She offers to light it, and Ray stands behind her with a real flashlight as she does so. He thanks her for this adult task, but declines her offer of teaching him how to do it. That’s a problem for future-Ray. They return to note taking and Googling once the furnace kicks on. Tina is an hour late for work before he finally winds down their conversation and walks her to the door. He’s sure his eyes are bloodshot behind his lenses, and he needs a break from all this dragon research.

 

“You don’t need to freak out over the dragon, Ray,” Tina assures him while pulling on her coat. “He likes you, and he’s not a ‘dumb, idiot baby’ as you so eloquently put it. He won’t burn your house down, and he won’t steal things from you. Just give him a chance, and in the meantime I’ll look around for someone responsible to take him, if it doesn’t work out.”

 

The dragon whines at Tina’s words, but Ray doesn’t pay him any attention. He’s still set on getting the little creature out of his house. Demon exorcising for a living while living with a creature he’d actually hunt doesn’t mix. Ray won’t allow himself to fantasize about keeping the dragon. He’s already had to distract Tina in her attempts at naming him. Once the dragon has a name, Ray knows the task of passing him on will only be that much harder. He hopes Tina will be back in a week at the most to take the dragon away. Already though, Ray is used to the weight of the little guy on his shoulders.

 

Ray hums and waves her goodbye. He stands behind the screen door until she’s safely in her car with the engine started. When her car jerks into gear and rolls away from the house, he finally closes the front door and locks it. The excitement and renewed warmth of the room suck the last dregs of energy out of Ray, and he drags his feet down the hallway to his bedroom. A few books are strewn on top of the blanket, and Ray takes care to pick them up rather then shove them to the floor. Once the bed is clear of books, Ray stumbles at the edge of his mattress. He’d almost flopped down on it, but his dragon friend is still around his neck.

 

“Okay, so I guess you’ll be sleeping in the fireplace. Which means I have to walk all the way back to the living room. Because I’m an idiot.”

 

The dragon squeezes him and grumbles a protest. Ray ignores it in favor of staggering down the hall to the smothered, half-burned logs. It’s a struggle, then, to loop his hands around the dragon’s body and tug him free. He doesn't claw at Ray’s skin or bite, but his pitiful sounds stab at Ray’s heart. He might not be pro-demon, but he can’t stand to hear the little guy make such lonely cries. With both hands cupped under the dragon, Ray keeps his eye away from those big eyes staring at him and deposits the dragon on a log. He doesn’t look back when stumbling down the hall. With the bedroom door shut behind him and the lights off, Ray plummets to bed and doesn’t remember even falling asleep.

 

Hours later, with the sun having already risen, Ray stirs awake with light in his eyes. He lies flat on his back with covers tangled around his legs. There’s a twinge in his back from leaning over the desk, taking notes while Tina had been here. Groaning, Ray makes to roll onto his side, but a weight in the center of his chest stops him. He doesn’t need to slide his glasses on to recognize the reds and oranges of the young dragon curled up on his chest. The dragon doesn’t wake when Ray twitches under him, with his face lost in the shirt material above Ray’s heart.

 

Ray’s hands hang in the air above the dragon, ready to scoop him up and take him back to the living room. But as he watches the creature snooze on his chest, the urge to push him away lessens in Ray’s gut. He doesn’t want to get close to the little guy, doesn’t want to form an attachment. It would be easier, if the dragon weren’t so cute and human-like. Ray frowns at this thought just at the dragon opens his eyes to watch Ray in the morning light. He’s smaller than he was last night, and Ray worries maybe he needs more food, or that the distance from the fireplace is hurting him.

 

One of Ray’s hands sinks down to touch the dragon’s hair. Sometimes, Ray thinks his hair flicks up like flames and detaches from the rest of him. Sometimes, the hair appears curled and singed, as if the dragon hasn’t decided on a physical form, yet. He wonders when that will happen. Tina had warned him early on that the dragon would assume a human form at some point, since he’ll model his world on his surroundings. And Ray is his primary surrounding. Ray just hopes the dragon doesn’t copy him, molding his body to look like Ray. That would be too much for the young exorcist.

 

Under Ray’s gentle touch, the dragon settles down again with a yawn. Ray tenses, assuming flames will shoot out. But nothing of the sort happens, and the creature just rests his head above Ray’s heart and drifts off. Names for the dragon ping around Ray’s head as he continues to pet his wild hair. Ray shakes his head though and sighs to the ceiling. Dust floats above his blurry vision, and Ray closes his eyes against the mounting pressure of responsibility. There’s no way he’ll be able to part with the little youngling. It’s too late for him.

 

“Fuck me, am I right?” Ray sighs before he too drifts back to sleep.


End file.
